{"id":414,"date":"2016-03-03T09:36:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T14:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/?p=414"},"modified":"2016-03-03T09:36:03","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T14:36:03","slug":"coming-full-circle-from-singapore-to-the-marine-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/coming-full-circle-from-singapore-to-the-marine-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming full circle: from Singapore to the Marine Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 2014,\u00a0I interned at the National University of Singapore (NUS) after high school. I was under the tutelage of Sivasothi, who has been working with Dr. Dan on the annual Urban Tropical Ecology course since 2005<\/a>. I still remember being a prefrosh listening to Dr. Dan’s lecture and meeting the Duke students from the Marine Lab, thinking how amazing\u00a0their courses sounded. Lo and behold, two years later I am here in Beaufort being\u00a0in<\/em> those amazing courses and loving every second of it.<\/p>\n

\"Gorgeous<\/a>
Gorgeous dinner time sunsets at the marine lab always make me question whether this is real life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If I believed in fate, I would say that this was the neatest turn of events. My Duke\u00a0friends and my wonderful roommate are in Singapore right now<\/a>, on the very same class led by Dr. Dan and Dr. Schultz.\u00a0As an international student hailing from a tiny island\u00a0on the other side of the planet, I’ve quickly grown used to the awkward silence after introducing where I’m from. Most people have vaguely heard of ‘Singapore’ before, but have no concept of\u00a0what<\/em> it is.<\/p>\n

“Is that part of\u00a0China?” No, we are in South-East Asian, although in our multi-racial population including Malays, Indians, and Eurasians, Chinese form the majority. You see, there are also various ethnic group subsets because … [launches into ramble of Singapore’s demographics]<\/em><\/p>\n

“Wikipedia says it’s a city-state, so is that like\u00a0actually a real country?” Yes,\u00a0modern Singapore arose when the British colonized it as a trading port, but is now an\u00a0independent Republic. You see, the British\u00a0surrendered it to the Japanese during World War II. Post-war, Singapore gained self-governance, merged with Malaya to form Malaysia, but … [launches into ramble of Singapore’s history]<\/em><\/p>\n

“Wow, your English is really good!” Thanks..? Reflecting the racial make-up of the country, English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil are Singapore’s official languages. You see, English is used as the\u00a0language of instruction, but our bilingual policy mandates everyone to learn their Mother Tongue as well. Singlish, a creole language, developed from\u00a0… [launches into ramble of Singapore’s education system]<\/em><\/p>\n

Facing questions biased by ambiguous assumptions of entire regions are doubtlessly a common experience for everyone – heck I’ve probably<\/del> definitely made my fair share based on the America I perceived in the media. But I’ve consciously trained to not\u00a0let myself be worked up over\u00a0unintended prejudices, because they mostly stem from ignorance which can be fairly easily rectified by supplying the accurate information. However, as much as I am honoured to be\u00a0a representative of my country abroad – it is truly<\/em> a joy for me to be the first Singaporean they interact with – it does becomes very tiring when it is up to you to constantly be the one dispelling misconceptions.<\/p>\n

\"Singapore:<\/a>
Singapore: city, garden, home.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In short, I was beyond\u00a0thrilled\u00a0that my friends will be going to\u00a0my<\/em> country, seeing the environment that has shaped me. As an extension, I hoped that they would be able to better understand who I am and how I have become so. Above all, I hoped that I will not be alone in explaining what Singapore is anymore.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, this excitement is accompanied by a small bitterness that I will not be able to be to one to show them around. I want to drag them all to Bukit Batok Nature Park to show them where I grew up, force them to try the pungent durian that I long for everyday in the States, put them through our highly-functional public transport system to justify why I don’t have a driving license. I just want to aggressively show them this 200 square mile of land that I am so proud of.<\/p>\n

But you know how when you are hosting people over, you’re worried whether\u00a0they are enjoying themselves? Even if I have no control over it, I privately anguish over: what if the spicy coconut noodle soup of Laksa and the rest of our cuisine doesn’t suit their tastes? Would\u00a0they visit Haw Par Villa with its dioramas of Chinese hell and think us weird? Is\u00a0Gardens by the Bay a green engineering marvel to them, or an irony\u00a0that they literally crossed oceans only to see plants from North America? How do they compare their vast forests where I have gone backpacking with them, to our relatively minuscule patches of remaining rainforests that they can hike through in a morning alone? Will they experience our HDB flats in the heartlands or assume\u00a0that the central business district at Marina Bay is all there is to the city?\u00a0What if they don’t like it?<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, that last insecurity\u00a0would be giving them too little credit, they are my friends after all. And as much as I want them to enjoy the same places I do, I want them have their own experience, not mine. Above all, I am interested in their perspective and cannot wait for them to return and have some great lunch-time discussions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does it mean to be an international student? Living vicariously through my friends in Singapore on the Urban Tropical Ecology travel course while I am at the marine lab makes for some thoughtful nights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,20],"tags":[57,58],"coauthors":[34],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-students","category-travel","tag-singapore","tag-urban-tropical-ecology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/files\/2016\/03\/DSC_0018.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6M6Pf-6G","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":453,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions\/453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/sea-bird\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}